The Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific policy is taking shape. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki announced that U.S. President Joe Biden will meet virtually on March 12 with his counterparts in the Quad — Japan, India and Australia — and that it would be the first time that the Quad is meeting “at the leader level.”
The office of the Indian prime minister echoed the announcement, saying that the Quad summit “will discuss regional and global issues of shared interest, and exchange views on practical areas of cooperation towards maintaining a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific,” including COVID-19, economic cooperation and the climate crisis.
“This will become a feature of Indo-Pacific engagement,” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters earlier in Sydney, and Tokyo officially confirmed the Quad summit. Although none of them have named a specific country, everybody in the media suspects that the Quad seeks to counter China’s rising influence in the region.